With the climate crisis becoming a growing concern, more people want to do their part to help curb its effects. Reducing plastic usage, shopping locally, and using reusable straws are practices that many of us are implementing into our routines. However, there is a system that many of us contribute to that has a massive negative impact on the planet: animal agriculture. Food production accounts for over a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, with 53% of that coming from livestock, fisheries, crops for animal feed, and land use for livestock. In other words, globally, animal agriculture causes about as much greenhouse gas emissions as all the cars, planes, trains, and ships combined. It’s destructive in other ways as well. From 2000-2013, animal agriculture accounted for 63% of deforestation in the Amazon. Plus, it’s incredibly inefficient: 77% of the land used for agriculture goes towards livestock, while only accounting for 18% of the world’s calories. By making changes in our diet, we can show these corporations that we want to support sustainable food systems that aren’t damaging our planet. This can be as simple as switching dairy milk for oat or almond milk, adopting meatless Mondays, or even eating more plant-based meals.
Katie Crumpley
Santa Cruz
This letter does not necessarily reflect the views of Good Times.To submit a letter to the editor of Good Times: Letters should be originals—not copies of letters sent to other publications. Please include your name and email address to help us verify your submission (email address will not be published). Please be brief. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and to correct factual inaccuracies known to us. Send letters to le*****@*******es.sc.
Re: “Two Arrested in BLM Mural Vandalism” (goodtimes.sc, 7/25): In considering the recent hate-filled tire skidding vandalism on the BLM on-road signage in front of City Hall, I imagined that trailing ribbon of tire treads covering the words of the BLM could now be in-filled with a written list of local and/or international Black heroes, turning the hate “ribbon” into a strong statement of hope and strength. The long slashing skid tire line transformed alchemically into its opposite, reaffirming the original intent of the messaging in an even deeper way. Perhaps the perps could even be part of the transformation as a sort of social remuneration. A guy can dream, can’t he?
John Balawejder
Santa Cruz
This letter does not necessarily reflect the views of Good Times.To submit a letter to the editor of Good Times: Letters should be originals—not copies of letters sent to other publications. Please include your name and email address to help us verify your submission (email address will not be published). Please be brief. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and to correct factual inaccuracies known to us. Send letters to le*****@*******es.sc.
I’ve noticed that when most people ask me about my favorite people I’ve interviewed, what they really want to know is my favorite famous people I’ve interviewed. So I’ve learned to skip right to the stories of Patti Smith, Lou Reed, the Coen Brothers, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, etc. But the truth is the best interviews don’t have anything to do with fame; like anybody else, I’m most happy when I’m talking to the people I find the most interesting. Sometimes they’re famous (Smith and John Waters, for instance, are both famous and endlessly engrossing), but most of the time, not.
In fact, it seems like the conversations that stick with me the most are the ones I have with people whom I’m convinced should be much more famous than they are. A lot of those people are right here in Santa Cruz County, and they probably have no idea how psyched I am when I have an excuse to call them up and ask them about something.
Other times they’re people who you’d think would be known around the world, considering what they’ve achieved, but for one reason or another, they’re not. It’s like that with the subject of my cover story this week, Martin Cooper. His invention of the cell phone puts him right up there with Steve Jobs in terms of revolutionizing how we live. And yet, most people don’t know who he is or what he did. That’s unfortunate, because not only is he an important creator of technology, he’s also a remarkable thinker on the subject of philosophy. I think my interview with him in this issue will show you what I mean.
Excellent article- very informative, interesting and well written! What a wonderful, inspirational, diverse group doing fantastic work together to benefit so many in the community. Rise Together is a model movement that should be replicated throughout the U.S.!
— Peggy
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GOOD IDEA
BOOSTING SUPPLIES
Last week, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) and the Santa Cruz County Office of Education (COE) kicked off the school year by distributing backpacks and school supplies to children served by the CASA program. The CASA program pairs foster children who have experienced abuse with volunteers who serve as these children’s advocates, both in and out of school. After a year of remote learning, CASA will continue to work with students, ensuring they are supported as they transition back to in-person school.
GOOD WORK
HEART FELT GOODBYE
Executive Director of Jacob’s Heart Lori Butterworth will be stepping down from her position. Butterworth founded Jacob’s Heart, a nonprofit that provides children’s cancer support, in her kitchen 23 years ago, after her friend’s son was diagnosed with leukemia. Since then, the organization has worked to improve the lives of children undergoing treatment. Butterworth will continue her work supporting young people as the CEO of AIM Youth Mental Health, and Heidi Boynton will assume the position of Executive Director at Jacob’s Heart.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Apparently, we love our own cell phones, but we hate everyone else’s.”
Most everyone has heard about how Star Trek was the inspiration for the cell phone. It makes sense if you look at the “communicator” from the original late-’60s version of the show—Captain Kirk and crew use it like a mobile phone, and it even looks like the flip phones that ruled the cellular market until iPhone came along. (Although the communicator had cooler flashing lights.)
The problem is, it’s not true. As Martin Cooper reveals in his memoir Cutting the Cord: The Creator of the Cell Phone Speaks Out, cellular technology was actually being developed in the late ’50s and through the ’60s. By the time Star Trek debuted in 1966, Cooper and his team at Motorola were practically in the home stretch; in 1973, they debuted the first-ever handheld mobile telephone, the brick-like DynaTAC. Cooper himself made the first cell phone call on October 17, 1973—to his chief competitor at AT&T, with whom he’d been in a bit of a cellular space race, as revealed in the book.
In actual fact, it wasn’t Star Trek’s communicator that inspired the cell phone, but the two-way radio wristwatch that Dick Tracy wore in the 1930s comic strip the 92-year-old Cooper read as a kid. So who’s responsible for this long-standing lie? Uh, well … Martin Cooper.
“I did it,” Cooper told me in an interview earlier this year. “It’s one of the mistakes I made.”
It’s true. People had assumed that the show predicted the cell phone for decades, but it was actually a 2005 TV movie called HowWilliam Shatner Changed the World that first claimed that Cooper literally conceived of the cell phone after happening to catch an episode of Star Trek on TV one day. Cooper endorsed the story—you can still see the clip on YouTube—and he’s been paying for it ever since.
“I got caught up in this thing. Their premise was that the cell phone came from William Shatner and Star Trek, and I didn’t argue with them,” he says with a laugh. “This is show business! We don’t worry about facts! And I’ve had to live with that for how many years now? Since then, I keep saying ‘It wasn’t Star Trek, it was Dick Tracy.’ But nobody pays attention.”
With his book, Cooper is finally setting the real history of the cell phone straight. An engineering genius who even has a tenet of wireless communication named after him (the Law of Spectral Efficiency, aka Cooper’s Law—I’m not going to explain it here, look it up), Cooper was born in Chicago to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, and worked for Motorola in Schaumburg, Illinois for almost three decades. After developing the DynaTAC and helping commercialize it, he left to co-found several companies—including in Silicon Valley, which he says he eventually had to go to in 1992 because “that’s where the smart people were”—that were also ahead of their time in the wireless industry.
Cutting the Cord lays out the little-known story of the cell phone in a way that’s never been done before. It’s a tale of technological vision that’s filled with insight, drama, corporate intrigue, and a lot of serious ups and downs on the way to changing the world. In our interview, Cooper talked not only about the book and his own history, but also his frustrations with the state of cellular technology and his hopes for its future.
Your book starts with your family history, your parents and brother coming into the U.S. as undocumented immigrants, fleeing the pogroms in Ukraine. So often the American history of entrepreneurship is that immigrant story. You were born in the U.S., but do you think growing up in a family that was driven to succeed in a new country played a role in your fascination with understanding how things work, as revealed in your childhood love of taking things apart and putting them back together?
MARTIN COOPER: There must be. Take a look at all the entrepreneurs you’ve interviewed, and how many of them fit into this category. Certainly the issue of immigration is important, and you worry a little bit about whether we have too many rules keeping that from happening. Because growth in this country really depends upon immigrants coming in. My grandfather was an entrepreneur—he ran the local butcher shop—and he had six children. Five of the six children ended up becoming entrepreneurs. And they all looked down on the one who didn’t. And when you go to the next generation, there’s still a whole bunch of entrepreneurs. Even though I worked for Motorola for 29 years, I was an independent at Motorola. I was always grateful that they tolerated me for all that time, because I was an independent thinker and I did a lot of what I wanted to do—and not what they wanted me to do.
PICTURING A REVOLUTION In his memoir ‘Cutting the Cord,’ Martin Cooper says technology should never tether us to one place.
You write a lot about the environment at Motorola, and one of the things I think is so interesting about the history of technology in the latter half of the 20th century is that the creative environment at an individual organization mattered more than it had at perhaps any other time in history. I get the sense that Motorola in the late ’50s was a bit of a forerunner to Apple and Atari and other tech companies in terms of fostering an environment where innovation could thrive.
There’s no question about it. You think about, “What’s the most fundamental issue as far as creativity is concerned?” You know what it is, it’s doing things differently. When you do things differently, you’re taking a risk. The bigger a company gets, and the more influence shareholders have, the more risk-averse the company gets. Somehow at Motorola, at least during the period of time I was there, the company was in the control of the founder and the founder’s family. Of course they paid attention to their shareholders, but the Galvins ran the company, absolutely no doubt about it. And the theme that I mention in the book that I really took seriously—maybe too seriously—was “Do not fear failure! Reach out!” Paul Galvin demonstrated that when he made three attempts to start Motorola. The first one with batteries for cars, and that failed. Then he put heaters in the cars, and those started to explode. And his third attempt was to put a radio in the car, and that ended up succeeding. So he was a perfect example, and that attitude—thank goodness for me—prevailed at the company, certainly in the division that I was in.
At one point in the book, you talk about Motorola’s operating principle in the late 1950s being a model for the ‘lean start-ups’ of today’s tech world. What do you think today’s tech start-ups can learn from what was happening there?
It’s interesting that you ask that, because I didn’t write the book as a “how-to,” but in retrospect the question is really profound. Because the number one thing was “put yourself in the mind of the customer.” You have to understand the customer’s problem better than the customer does. Number two was “fear the competition.” Don’t worry about the competition, fear them! And believe me, we took that very seriously. And number three was “don’t ever fall in love with the technology.” Like I said in the book, technology is the application of science to make products and services that make people’s lives better. If you forgot about the people, it’s not technology. It’s curiosity. It’s anything but technology.
I love how the competition in this case, AT&T, plays a big role in your book—it’s almost the antagonist of your story, in a way. Clearly you pushed each other—almost everything you were doing was done in response to something they were doing, or they were doing something in response to what you had done. Do you think that was necessary for you to make the breakthroughs that you did, including the cell phone itself?
There’s no question that we were motivated by that. AT&T were not bad people; they were doing what monopolies do when they are in power. It was the fact that the government allowed them to be a monopoly that made them behave the way they did. When you live in that environment, you find out how important competition is to progress, and to driving things. There’s no question that we would not have started cellular if AT&T had not decided that they were going to do cellular and make it a monopoly. That was so abhorrent to us, to have them take a competitive business, and try to make the next generation a monopoly. We were fighting so hard to maintain a competitive environment in that business, and here they were trying to not only take over this new thing, but also take over the old businesses. So the biggest thing AT&T did was not come up with the concept of cellular, it was trying to commercialize it and make it monopolistic. If they hadn’t done that, it might have been years before we got around to it, or somebody else did.
Right, because when you went into that meeting in December of 1972 where you presented your concept for the first cell phone, you knew you only had until March of 1973 to get it finished. What I love about that scene in the book is that it illustrates how I think the process of invention often works—there’s years and years of steady build-up beforehand, and then all of a sudden at the end there’s a quick, desperate push. In that scene, you’re telling Rudy Krolopp to design a model for this portable cell phone in a matter of weeks, and he’s saying, ‘What the hell is a portable cell phone?’ He doesn’t even know what you’re talking about, and you’re describing it by picking up an office phone and saying ‘Imagine this, if I cut the cord on it and could walk around anywhere while I talked on it.’
There were two issues. Number one was, you’re right, everything kind of culminated at that point, and we were forced to work day and night with a crew of brilliant people. But the other aspect of it is that it took years and years of building up to an understanding of what the market is, an understanding of what the technology is, a belief that people were going to behave in a certain way. And that started from the day I started in the research department at Motorola. So it did take both of those—the long trail of building up the background, and finally putting it all together in a sudden push.
What was it like when you first saw those prototype designs? You’ve got photos in the book, and some of those concepts were wild, but several would actually come to be realized much later, like the double-flip phone.
It’s much more amazing now when you’ve lived to see most of these versions commercialized. These guys were geniuses. I wouldn’t have asked Rudy to do this thing, and I wouldn’t have bought them all dinner, if I didn’t have enormous respect for them. Those [first prototypes] were just beautiful, and that’s why I preserved the pictures, and I suspect that Rudy or Ken Larson may have the original phones.
One of the key conceptual breakthroughs you had was the idea that ‘people connect with people, not places.’ It was so prescient—we’re only two decades into widespread cell phone use, and it’s already insane to remember that we used to have to run around from fixed point to fixed point to use a phone. How did that realization guide the process of creating the cell phone?
Well, remember we had a head start. We were in the two-way radio business, and we were trying to let people run their businesses—including police departments, fire departments—and we had discovered over a period of years that once they had this technology, and they had the freedom to manage mobile resources, they couldn’t run their businesses without them! And then we discovered that the freedom of mobility is not very free when you’re stuck in a car. So we knew that portables were the way to go. When we built phones for the police department and the people who run airport facilities, we made holsters for them, made out of leather, so they could carry them around with them. And then we’d walk through the airport and they’re walking around with these things in their hands! Is there a message there or not? Now you walk around and 30% of the people crossing the street are looking at their cell phones. It’s insane! But that’s what inventors do, they observe and find out what the nature of people’s behavior is, that’s the first thing to understand. And then find the technology to fix what people want.
You say you had a head start, but it’s funny how often you asserted that radio technology was the key to cellular, and how many people told you you were wrong—until you turned out to be right.
People are resistant to any change. The more profound the change is, the more people tell you it’s absolutely impossible. And I can’t tell you how many times people have told me something was impossible. I’ll jump ahead a little bit. Here I am now, I’m 92 years old, I really ought to be sitting back, but I’m on a technology advisory council for the FCC. The FCC is worried about the digital divide—and they should be. And one of the things about the digital divide is that you cannot get an education today without broadband. So the FCC has found a few billion dollars, and they’re going to provide broadband. Well, guess what? They’re talking about wired broadband. Now, have we learned a lesson, or have we not learned it? If you’re going to provide broadband to students, it’s got to be wireless, because they’ve got to have the same freedom that people needed for cellular, and for every other connectivity. So we’re going through the same thing again.
Speaking of resistance to change, it’s incredible that the cellular technology you introduced with the DynaTAC in the early 1970s languished for so long before people caught on to its potential.
In 1983, I was in the cellular billing business, trying to convince people, “This is going to be a big business, and you’re going to need to create bills for people and keep track of how much they’re talking,” and all that, and I get a guy from London who says, “Well, maybe you Americans will buy those things, but I’ve done a study and the long-term market in London is about 12,000 people who will buy cell phones.” That was the view people had. Ordinary people are not good at projecting what’s going to happen to technology. And technologists are not much better.
One of the things you stress in the book is that wireless is still in its infancy as a technology, with a lot more possible applications that could improve people’s lives around the world.
We haven’t figured out the cell phone yet. We’re just learning how to use the technology. The cell phones themselves are engineers’ ideas about what people ought to have. They are devices that try to do all things for all people, and don’t do any of them optimally. It’s going to take another generation, maybe two generations, to have a cell phone that meets my criteria for good technology. I know what bad technology is, and you do, too—with the first cell phones, the instruction manual was bigger and heavier than the phone. And then Steve Jobs comes along and he persuades us that things ought to be intuitive. You look at an icon and it should tell you what to do. And of course now, you have the option of selecting among two million icons, trying to figure out which one’s right for you. Intuitive is better than bad, but we know what the optimum technology is. Optimum technology is invisible. It’s there, you may know it’s there, but you’re unaware of it. It makes your life better, it solves your problems, and you never even have to think about it. And we are so far from that now with the cell phone. We have at least a human generation, as well as a technology generation, before we get close to what an optimum cell phone is. But I’m an optimist; I think you can tell that. I have the ultimate confidence in the ability of people to figure it out.
After more than 30 meetings over the past eight months, the Watsonville Ad Hoc Committee on Policing and Social Equity on Aug. 4 released its report to the public before its final meeting on Aug. 21.
For Watsonville City Councilman Francisco “Paco” Estrada, a very telling excerpt of the 224-page report comes in the advice given to the group by those who participated in the various meetings.
One suggestion says the committee should reallocate funds from Watsonville Police Department’s budget, and consider defunding the police entirely to address the root causes of crime. The very next suggestion on the list says, “Do not ever consider defunding the police.”
But between those two extremes, Estrada says, lie dozens of suggestions from participants of how to address the concerns that sparked the committee’s creation last year.
“I think we had a valuable conversation about where we’re at as a community,” he says. “I think there’s been growth and the nuanced perspectives that we’ve heard are invaluable … maybe [through this process] we see that we have something that we can work with. Maybe that we don’t have to scrap the whole thing, and we can build.”
Created by former Mayor Rebecca Garcia and retired police chief David Honda, the committee sought to address the calls for social justice and police reform that arose from last summer’s global outcry after the killing of George Floyd. The city set out to examine the relationship between its police department and residents, championing the effort as a community-wide meeting of the minds that would give everyone in Santa Cruz County’s southernmost city a chance to share their experiences with WPD—the good, bad and everything in between.
Estrada, Mayor Jimmy Dutra, and fellow City Councilman Aurelio Gonzalez have led the 18-member committee—which also includes 12 Watsonville residents and three WPD officers—through the meetings and community workshops in which they heard from everyday citizens, nonprofit leaders and community activists, among others.
The committee’s final report contains the results of a survey mailed to more than 13,000 Watsonville homes, and summaries of listening sessions conducted by the committee, United Way of Santa Cruz County and Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action (COPA). It also includes an online community survey asking residents about the state of the city and an in-house report from WPD.
What it does not feature is the committee’s list of recommendations. Those will be solidified on Aug. 21, and then relayed to the Watsonville City Council sometime in the next two months.
Watsonville Assistant City Manager Tamara Vides, who has spearheaded the effort, says that the work will begin when those recommendations are sent to the elected leaders.
“I think [the committee’s] work is a really great starting point for us to keep this conversation going,” she says.
Rec Room
Though Estrada, Vides, and committee members interviewed for this story were unwilling to disclose all the recommendations the committee would discuss on Aug. 21, they did highlight some community-led suggestions that arose from the discussions.
These include the return of the Neighborhood Services Division, which was dissolved in 2019. That effort—first a part of the Parks and Community Services Department, and later moved to WPD’s budget—tried to use the core principles of community policing by establishing a neighborhood watch, graffiti and litter abatement programs, and a National Night Out event, which brings residents and officers together in a relaxed setting. It empowered residents through its neighborhood development program. The city would hold workshops on civic engagement and host small community events to strengthen the bond between neighbors, allowing them to handle minor neighborhood issues amongst themselves and not always depend on police intervention.
Some elements of the division, such as the neighborhood watch and National Night Out, still exist, but Estrada said that many people suggested they’d like to see a revival—and expansion—of the neighborhood development program.
“I think we tried to consolidate and centralize our services—bring as many things to the youth center, to one spot—but I think that was a mistake,” he said. “I strongly believe now that we have to have a presence on as many streets as possible.”
That, he says, is an adjustment that can be made quickly, but other recommendations might be multi-year projects that impact several city departments. Some small but important recommendations suggested in the report include things such as improving street lighting. The report also suggested creating a pilot program that would divert non-emergency 911 calls to a division such as the South County Mobile Emergency Response Team for Youth, providing community and field-based crisis intervention services to people 21 years old and younger.
Some might not directly impact WPD, says Vides, as the “social equity” component of the committee’s work is tightly intertwined with the role and view of the city’s police department.
According to the report, a majority of participants said their public safety concerns are a symptom of social issues that have metastasized. Respondents for both the mailed-home survey and the committee meetings said that the area’s high cost of living was the biggest impediment to their “quality of life and well-being.” Those polled at committee meetings also said that the city needs to address the lack of opportunity for young people.
In response, Vides said that the city is working on an employment training program that would equip young residents with the skills needed to find entry-level jobs that could lead to a career. It’s one of a handful of projects the city kickstarted because of the committee’s work, Vides says.
“This process was more than just about policing,” she says. “You might not be able to directly link [the job program to the committee], but those ideas came from those meetings.”
Also included in the report are several pages of notes from meetings conducted by COPA, a faith-based nonprofit that helps organize grassroots movements to address societal issues. In these meetings, small groups— 10 people or less—sat down with WPD officers and shared their experiences with law enforcement.
Various attendees shared stories about positive interactions with officers, but many recalled negative experiences with police. Some said officers held them without explanation for simply fitting a description, and others said officers were either unresponsive, unhelpful or disrespectful.
One woman shared that she was often followed home by an officer who then scolded her outside her residence for unknown reasons. That experience “traumatized” her, according to the notes, but, now a mother, she has since tried to “leave her fear behind” and work with WPD.
According to the notes, many other negative interactions happened several years ago, a trend that committee member Celeste Gutierrez says solidified her belief that there needs to be a “healing component” within the final recommendations. That might include, she said, the continuation of similar community forums where residents can connect with police officers, share their experiences and feelings and get closure.
“There is a lot of healing that needs to occur,” she said, “and that needs to happen now.”
Weighing Responses
Out of the 13,000 surveys mailed to Watsonville homes, only 372 were returned—the city also conducted another 99 surveys at the Watsonville farmers market.
That muted response, says Gutierrez, was disappointing but not surprising, considering the moves made throughout the committee’s work. That included voting to close the committee’s meetings to the public during a closed session in April, and parting ways with their community outreach lead the month prior.
“Voting to close the meetings wasn’t right. It seems so counterintuitive to the direction the community wants to be going in according to the feedback in the report,” said Gutierrez, before citing the “nothing about us, without us” slogan, meaning no policy should be decided without the full participation of the group affected. “I think the community wanted to be a part of the conversation, but they never got a real chance.”
Vides strongly disagrees with that statement, explaining that the survey is just one of several pieces to the much larger puzzle the committee put together. Overall, she said she was satisfied with the response the committee received despite the looming pandemic.
“[The committee] came at a time when the nation was having these conversations, and we didn’t ignore it,” she said. “We had the conversations.”
Fellow committee member Anissa Balderas also had concerns about the demographics of the survey. Respondents were primarily older adults (81% were 45 or older), more than half (65%) were homeowners, and Latinx respondents made up about 44% of those surveyed. Those numbers do not reflect Watsonville’s young, Latinx demographic that largely rents, Balderas said.
“[That] is something to consider when reviewing the results,” she wrote in an email.
More than half (55%) of survey respondents wanted more police presence to make the city safer. In addition, 40% of survey respondents said that the community would benefit from more services for older adults.
But the 86 people polled during the committee meetings conducted between May and June had very different views. That pool of participants said the city would benefit from more programs for young people, and only 23% said there should be more police presence to increase safety—29% said there should be less police presence and 8% said the city should remove all police.
The survey also showed that 55% of white respondents felt local law enforcement is “very trustworthy,” compared to 33% of Latinx respondents.
“This significant difference tells me that Hispanic/Latinx respondents do not completely trust our local law enforcement,” Balderas wrote. “Knowing this, how are we empowering our community with a process they can trust?”
Overall, Balderas said her thoughts about policing and social equity were affirmed through her time on the committee.
“This deep dive into policing, community services and local government showed me how intertwined these systems are and how they can reproduce inequity,” she wrote. “This process has challenged me to reimagine what I think of public safety and how my community views it.”
While it might not have been a perfect process, Balderas said that good things did indeed sprout from the last eight months.
“The Ad Hoc Committee has kept the conversation of policing related to racism, poverty and mental health going. The community came together to engage in dialogue, complete surveys and even critique the processes of the Ad Hoc Committee,” she wrote, also highlighting that other community leaders organized their own workshops about policing and social justice because of the committee. “I hope that the city and county will look at the Ad Hoc Committee and understand what worked and what didn’t. I believe that the momentum of these discussions will carry forward, and I trust that the community will keep our elected officials accountable for equitable change.”
The Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter (SCCAS) has broken ground on an extensive, multiple-phase expansion of its main campus in Santa Cruz.
The project was originally planned to kick off in 2020, but the pandemic halted construction for more than a year, as the shelter dealt with closures, restrictions and an influx of animals during the CZU Lightning Complex fires. Last week, work finally began on the first phase of the project, which includes increasing the size of the shelter’s on-site spay/neuter clinic, extending out the rabbit room, and adding on a community cat room to the front of the facility, where there is unused landscaping space.
Pam Lowry, secretary of the SCCAS Foundation’s board and longtime volunteer, says that she’s looking forward to seeing the area utilized in a way that won’t seem overwhelming to locals.
“What’s nice is that from the outside, people aren’t going to realize that this has been such a significant change,” Lowry says. “They’ve designed it so it fits in really well, with the same roof angle and everything, which is important. It’s not this big thing that will change the look of the neighborhood.”
However, says SCCAS program and development manager Erika Smart, the inside will feel a lot different.
“We’re going to have a lot more room, a lot more natural light coming in,” Smart says. “The cats especially like to hang out in the windows, in the sun. They like to look out and see what’s happening. It’s going to be great.”
The community cat room will act as an extra area for prospective owners to meet cats in a more relaxed, open atmosphere—similar to the cat cafes popping up in big cities.
“Instead of people coming in and looking at a cat in a cage, they can sit on a couch, they can play with the animals,” says Melanie Sobel, general manager of the shelter and president of the foundation’s board. “It will be wonderful, having an open space, for those cats that thrive in that type of environment.”
Sobel adds that it will also allow their adoptable rabbits to have a bigger area.
“We can set up more pens, so they can hop around—it’ll be great for them,” she says.
Plans to expand the shelter have been ongoing for years. With the organization continuing to grow, staff and volunteers found that they needed more space, especially in the clinic.
“Our clinic is very small,” Sobel says. “There’s not much room to move around. Cats and dogs sometimes have to be housed together after recovering from surgery, which is not ideal. With [the expansion], the surgery suite will more than double in size, with more surgery tables. It will speed up the process and spread things out.”
SCCAS offers the only low-cost spay/neuter program for cats, rabbits and dogs in Santa Cruz County, which since 1994 has mandated spay/neuter procedures for pets.
“The problem is…it doesn’t make sense to have a mandate if you don’t have an affordable resource for the public,” Sobel says. “It’s not fair to those who can’t afford it.”
In 2011 SCCAS launched Planned Pethood, which offers residents low prices on procedures. Smart says they’ve never had to advertise the program—they are constantly getting people asking for their services.
“We have about 150 animals waiting at any given time to get surgery,” Smart says. “It’s definitely a need. To have a bigger space—it means we can do more.”
Lowry says the expansion will be better for the animals, more accessible to the public and improve things on an administrative level.
“Right now, we have one room to do staff meetings, training and volunteer meetings…plus it’s the break room,” she says. “This will help that issue, too. When you have more admin space, you can get more done.”
The second and third phases of the SCCAS’s expansion are still in the works, but are planned to include a remodeling of the Shelter Annex next door and a new training and education center on-site.
Lowry says that so far, nearby residents and other businesses have been very supportive of the project.
“It’s great to know that this community supports what we are doing,” she says. “And we want this to support them, in turn.”
Learn more about the shelter’s plans at scanimalshelter.org/campus_expansion.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): A blogger who calls herself TheSaddestChorusGirlInTheWorld writes, “Having sex with someone is a big deal and involves a ton of vulnerability. And I think it’s troubling and gross and unhealthy and, yes, dangerous that we pretend otherwise and encourage people to ‘be mature’ by compartmentalizing or completely eliminating their deeper emotions from their sexuality. And even worse, any other view is dismissed as prudish and invalid and unenlightened and restrictive.” You may agree with everything TheSaddestChorusGirl says here. But if you haven’t arrived at her conclusions, now is a good time to meditate on them. Why? Because your assignment in the coming weeks is to deepen and refine your relationship with your sexuality. Be extra reverent about your sensual longings. Ensure that your erotic activities serve your highest ideals and noblest goals.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The popular American TV sitcom 30 Rock produced 138 episodes in seven seasons. At the height of its success, it crammed an average of 9.57 jokes into every minute. Its comic richness derived in large part from multi-talented Taurus star Tina Fey, who created the show and played one of its main characters. She was also a writer and executive producer. I propose we make her your role model in the coming weeks. According to my projections, you’re entering a charismatic, ebullient, and creative phase of your astrological cycle. It’s time to be generous to the parts of your life that need big happy doses of release and liberation.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I got an email from a Gemini reader named Jaylah. She wrote, “Hi, not sure if you remember me, but in our past lives, you and I used to write sacred cuneiform texts on clay tablets while sitting across from each other in a cave in Mesopotamia 4,910 years ago. Your name was Nabu. Mine was Tashmetu. I was always a little jealous because you earned more money than I, but it didn’t get in the way of our friendship. Anyway, if you ever want to catch up about the old days, give me a holler.” I loved receiving this inquiry from a soul I may have known in a previous incarnation. And what she did by reaching out to me happens to be the perfect type of activity for you Geminis right now. Secrets of your history may be more available than usual. The past may have new stories to tell. A resource from yesteryear could prove valuable in the future.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian-born Franz Kafka was an interesting writer and a master of language. But even for him, it could be a challenge to convey what he really meant. He said, “I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones.” Now here’s the good news, as far as you’re concerned, Cancerian: I suspect that in the coming weeks, you will have more power than usual to do exactly what Kafka aspired to do. You will be able to summon extra ease and grace in expressing your truths. I invite you to be a connoisseur of deep conversations.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “If we wait until we are ready, we will be waiting for the rest of our lives,” declared novelist Lemony Snicket. This is good advice for you to heed right now. I really hope you avoid the temptation to wait around for the perfect moment before you begin. In my vision of your best approach, you will dive into the future without trying to have all your plans finalized and all your assets gathered. I expect you will acquire the rest of what you need once the process is underway.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Author Katherine Mansfield once told her friend Virginia Woolf, “You put me in touch with my own soul.” I’m sorry Mansfield didn’t previously have that precious connection, but I’m elated that Woolf helped her make it. In the coming weeks, I expect you will encounter an abundance of influences like Woolf: people and animals and places and experiences that can bring you into more intimate contact with your soul. I hope you take full advantage.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): At the age of 70, Libran novelist Magda Szabó mused, “I know now, what I didn’t then, that affection can’t always be expressed in calm, orderly, articulate ways; and that one cannot prescribe the form it should take for anyone else.” In that spirit, Libra, and in accordance with astrological omens, I authorize you to express affection in lively, unruly, demonstrative ways. Give yourself permission to be playfully imaginative, exuberantly revelatory, and vivaciously animated as you show the people and animals you cherish the nature of your feelings for them.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Do you Scorpios lie to yourselves more than the other signs lie to themselves? Are you especially prone to undermine yourselves through self-deception? I don’t think so. However, you might be among the signs most likely to mislead or beguile other people. (But here’s a caveat: On some occasions, your trickery is in a good cause, because it serves the needs of the many, not just yourself.) In any case, dear Scorpio, I will ask you to minimize all such behavior during the next five weeks. I think your success will depend on you being exceptionally honest and genuine—both to yourself and to others.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “I like being broken,” says Sagittarius actor Jamie Campbell Bower. “It means I can have chocolate for breakfast.” I guess that when he feels down, he gives himself special permission to enjoy extra treats and privileges. According to my assessment of the astrological omens, you now have the right to give yourself similar permission—even though I don’t expect you’ll be broken or feeling down. Think of it as a reward for the brave work you’ve been doing lately. Enjoy this chocolatey grace period!
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) was a Jewish theologian born under the sign of Capricorn. He wrote, “Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.” That’s a different definition of sin from what we’re used to! To be a moral person, Heschel believed, you must be in “radical amazement” about the glories of creation. I hope you will cultivate such an attitude in the coming weeks, Capricorn. It would be a mistake for you to numbly take things for granted. I dare you to cultivate as much awe, reverence, and adoration as you can muster.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): A blogger who calls herself Hopeful Melancholy wrote a message to her lover. She said, “My favorite sexual position is the one where you work on your paintings and I work on my book, but we’re in the same room and occasionally smile at each other.” You might want to consider trying experiments comparable to that one in the coming weeks, Aquarius. The time will be fertile for you and your dear allies to work side-by-side; to cheer each other on and lift each other up; to explore new ways of cultivating companionship and caring for each other.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Dick Dudley was a 17th-century swindler. Among his many victims was the Pope. Dudley offered an item for sale that he claimed was a divine relic: a piece of the beard of St. Peter, founder of the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope paid Dudley a small fortune for the treasure, and kissed it copiously. Only later did the full story emerge: The so-called beard was in fact a sex worker’s pubic wig. I hope you don’t get involved in switcheroos like that anytime soon, Pisces. Make sure that the goods or services you’re receiving—and offering, for that matter—are exactly what they’re supposed to be.
Homework: Describe what you’re ever so thankful for. Ne********@***************gy.com
Brandon Armitage is one of the premier winemakers in the Santa Cruz area. He consistently turns out impressive wines—one of which is the 2019 Alaya Vineyard Chardonnay ($36).
This Chardonnay is aged in stainless steel, so those not fond of oaked Chard will be happy with this crisp, bright white wine. “It’s an unoaked delight that is slowly cold-fermented to bring out the intense tropical aromas of banana, pineapple and coconut,” says Armitage. “The wine is not aged in oak barrels, and the full expression of the varietal is allowed to shine. The palate is round and full, making this the perfect wine to enjoy with almost any food or on its own.”
Armitage farms his grapes on the old Alfred Hitchcock estate in Scotts Valley—usually closed to the public—where the iconic director once lived and invited Hollywood royalty to stay. And it is on this historic property where Armitage holds splendid outdoor concerts at its venue, Tiny Winery. The next show is “An Evening with the North Mississippi Allstars” on Friday, Sept.3, a 21-and-over event. Doors open at 6pm and the music starts at 7pm.
“Armitage Wines is rolling out the red carpet for the North Mississippi Allstars,” says Armitage. “Get ready to shake what your mama gave you when they tear up the Tiny Winery stage!”
Meantime, you can visit Armitage Wines tasting room—by reservation—in the heart of Aptos Village, next to Starbucks at 105c Post Office Drive, Aptos. 831-708-2874. Visit the website for upcoming concert info and tasting room hours. armitagewines.com.
Taste of Terroir
Lester Estate Wines at Deer Park Ranch hosts a marvelous farm-to-table Taste of Terroir dinner on their beautiful property on Pleasant Valley Road in Aptos. Delicious food will be paired with gorgeous Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Participating wineries include Sante Arcangeli Family Wines, Ferrari Ranch Wines, Alfaro Family Vineyards, Storrs Winery, Bargetto Winery, Aptos Vineyard and Lester Estate Wines. The event is 4pm Sunday, Sept.19. For tickets and additional information, visit winesofthesantacruzmountains.com.
Penny Ice Creamery specializes in scratch-made ice cream using primarily locally sourced ingredients. They have locations in Aptos Village, Pleasure Point and downtown Santa Cruz (all open at noon every day). Soon, a fourth is set to open in Scotts Valley. The creative genius behind the ice cream is owner/chef Kendra Baker, who first opened shop in 2010. Manager Rahul Bhambhani was originally a customer who loved the ice cream; now, he’s a part of the operation. He has tried ice cream worldwide, but firmly believes that Penny’s is the best. He spoke to GT about its next-level cold treat.
What makes Penny’s ice cream so good?
RAHUL BHAMBHANI: The made-from-scratch process is one thing, and we have our own pasteurizer, which allows us to make our ice cream base completely from scratch, which is really unique. And the way that we spin our ice cream introduces less air than you typically find into the product, which leads to a creamy texture with a dense result. Our philosophy is to create an ice cream that has a hand-crafted feel and give our guests the experience of being as close to the source as possible.
What are some of the most popular flavors?
We have five classics: Tahitian vanilla bean, dark chocolate sorbet, fresh mint chip, bitter caramel, and our Verve Coffee with chocolate almond praline. We also strive to have a variety of seasonal rotating flavors as well; a current summer one is our blackberry sweet corn with real corn in the base, which creates an unusual texture that delights our guests. Part of our brand too is offering flavors that pique our guest’s interest and give them the opportunity to indulge their creative curiosity. In the past, we’ve had celery raisin, chili chocolate smoke, candied buddha hand and even a candy-cap mushroom ice cream.
Any non-ice cream standouts?
The dark chocolate sorbet is something Kendra has perfected over a decade. Even though it is vegan, it really surprises the guests because the texture is so smooth that they mistake it for dairy. And we always have one seasonal sorbet available. My personal favorite is the strawberry—it’s just incredible. We have novelties, including bonbons and Penny Pops, as well as a full espresso bar.
913 Cedar St., Santa Cruz; 820 41st Ave., Santa Cruz; 141 Aptos Village Way C2, Aptos, 831-204-2523; thepennyicecreamery.com.
It might look like Bambi Meets Godzilla, or it might appear to be a very smart and lucrative venture. We’ll see. But what it is, is a surprising new collaboration between the ultimate maverick winemaker Randall Grahm and the larger-than-life mega-wine brand Gallo. Bonny Doon Vineyard founder Grahm’s latest project hooks him up with the Gallo Family in an arena close to his heart: the grapes of Rhône. In fact, Gallo already has a vineyard in Edna Valley growing Cinsault, Grenache and Syrah. Coincidence?
“The recent joint venture between E&J Gallo and myself with the unlikely name, ‘The Language of Yes,’ is proving to be a very useful vehicle to allow us each to do what we do best,” Grahm told me by email last week. “To play with Rhône grapes and avail myself of the impressive Gallo research facility, and for Gallo, of course, to sell wine, something they are particularly good at doing. I am particularly thrilled that we have begun with the release of an extremely obscure Provençal grape variety, Tibouren, which I personally believe has infinite potential on our shores for elegance and intelligence.”
Grahm’s private little Eden in San Juan Bautista, Popelouchum, is an estate laboratory filled with viticultural experiments in capturing our region’s unique terroir. There, Grahm is grafting onto drought-resistant rootstock (grown from seed), some oddball grape varieties in hopes of producing heretofore unimaginable wines.
Back to the Gallo alliance.
“The project that we are jointly working on is in many ways a research project—one that would be essentially impossible for me to undertake entirely by myself,” Grahm said. Of course, it wouldn’t have an ordinary logo or some obvious name. The name for the initial wines to come from the new venture, The Language of Yes is based upon the Provençal dialect of Occitan, the Langue d’Oc (Stay with me). RG has explained that the term for the provincial language was exactly right to brand the wines based upon that South-of-France region, i.e., Grenache, Cinsault, and Syrah. The Language of Yes seems poetic, a very “Grahm” antidote for the, uh, discomforting times in which we all find ourselves.
“If all goes well,” he tells me, “the RG/Gallo alliance will allow me some unique opportunities, not the least of which is financial, to play in a very cordial arena. It’s not necessarily familiar or always comfortable to work in such a highly structured environment, but the trade-off seems worth it. If I play my cards right, I’m hopeful I can avail myself of Gallo’s extremely powerful research capability to better illuminate vinous truth and hopefully produce wines that are in fact unique.” It might just work. Fans of Grahm’s circuitous career, from Flying Cigar to New World vine whisperer, are spellbound by this latest chapter. Some are even dumbstruck. As Randall reminds us: “There’s enough ordinary wine in the world already.” Amen to that. Follow the progress of the Language of Yes vitiventure at languageofyeswine.com.
Small Non-Trivia: The excellent salad at Avanti, created to accompany the unctuous duck confit appetizer, is a salad of fresh corn right off the cob, tossed with bits of dry-farmed tomato and fresh basil and olive oil. True summer flavors. Nectarines. Right now. The best ones I’ve tasted this week are the white nectarines from Shoppers—tart, tangy, sweet, juicy and perfect.
